When you take a week's vacation in today's world, you have to be prepared for fast and dramatic changes to the status quo. Since I signed off last Saturday, John Ashcroft has resigned, Yasser Arafat has died, and the battle of Fallujah has raged and subsided into an occupation.
Also this past week, as I enjoyed a cruise with my mother, the U.S. Marines (USMC) celebrated the anniversary of the Corps on November 10, and the United States observed our nation’s annual Veterans Day on November 11. On November 11, I was browsing in one of the shipboard shops and noticed one of my fellow passengers wearing a Pearl Harbor Survivor baseball cap. I greeted him and thanked him for his service; this is a new habit I am proud to have acquired since becoming a Soldier’s Angel. We chatted for a couple of minutes, and this hero of yesterday proudly pointed out his USMC tie clip and belt buckle to my mother and me. Then, he pulled from his shirt pocket a pen with the Marine Corps emblem on it, opened it, and it played the Marine Corps hymn. “Yesterday was my birthday,” he smiled, referring to the USMC anniversary.
Sixty-three years after Pearl Harbor, this man still identified that strongly with “the Corps.” Now an elderly leisure traveler with white hair and a relaxed smile, he was once a young GI who survived the hell of Pearl Harbor and went on to fight as a warrior in the brotherhood known as the U.S. Marines. Our soldiers fighting in Fallujah today are as blood family to him.
My mother and I spent some time talking about war on this trip, both World War II and Iraq. She believes that our country needs more information about our troops in order to feel more connected to Operation Iraqi Freedom. Mom suggested a revival of the service flags that WWII families would hang in their windows as one way to recognize the service of our military today. She said that in World War II, the service flags were a message to all that a member of this home was serving in the military. Blue star flags signified a star for each family member in military service. Gold stars told the sad story of those lost in battle. My mother said that she and her friends would stand in awe before the windows that displayed two or three gold stars. The weight of this crushing sacrifice gave pause to every passerby. The terrible human cost of war was clearly understood and deeply respected. We could use more reminders of our military’s sacrifices to help unite us as a nation in support of our troops today.
I agree with her. As most of us know, mother is always right.
